[originaltext]W: Good evening. I’m going to talk with Andrew Wright. He is an a

W: Good evening. I’m going to talk with Andrew Wright. He is an author and language teacher for many years. Nice to meet you here, Andrew. First of all, can you tell us when, where and why did you begin teaching English?
M: I have always been a worker for teachers rather than a language teacher. It’s a bit like being a maker of violins for others to play. Of course, I can and have knocked out some tunes on the violin myself but basically I am a maker.
W: What is your involvement now in English language teaching?
M: I run a language school with my wife. My school organizes London Chamber of Commerce Cert TEB courses for teachers of Business English with Mark Powell. I do some work with teachers in various countries each year. I write articles for teachers’ magazines.
W: How many books have you published? Which are you most proud of?
M: I have been writing non-stop for forty years, almost exactly. So I can’t list all my books. I have been lucky to have been thrown forward by the wave of developments in language teaching for much of that time. I am very proud of being the writer of the very first topic based text book ever written: Kaleidoscope, published by Macmillan in the 1960s. Now out of print. I am also proud of the fact that my Games for Language Learning, is still going strong after 25 years. It was the first book on ELT to be based on the cook book recipe layout of the activities.
W: What in language teaching have most influenced you?
M: In the 1960s I was very influenced by the work of SCOPE, a course book for teaching English as a second language. It showed me that language learning can also be about learning other things of interest and value and not be necessarily based on trivial stories and drills. I was also influenced by books and materials published for teaching other subjects in the curriculum, for example, history, science and social studies.
W: Which three non-ELT books would you take to a desert island?
M: You should have said "apart from Shakespeare! ", because Shakespeare would be my first book to take. Perhaps one of Henry Mayhew’s books on life in London in the mid-nineteenth century, for example, Mayhew’s Characters. It is fascinating and it would make me feel that there are compensations in not having to struggle to exist in a big city... it may not be so bad to live on a desert island. And perhaps I would take a book on survival that has all kinds of intriguing ideas for remaining alive and well in nature.
1. What does Andrew Wright’s work cover?
2. What can we learn about the book Kaleidoscope?
3. Which book has received a warm welcome for more than two decades?
4. Why does the work of SCOPE impose a great impact on Andrew?
5. What kind of book would Andrew Wright take to a desert island?